If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Re: Questions from the book of PROVERBS

I'm going to start off by doing a little background on the dates of writing and some other information that I believe will help enhance this study.

I will be getting my information from the ESV Study Bible (Online Version)

Author and Date

Proverbs itself mentions Solomon (reigned c. 971–931 b.c.) as author or collector of its contents (1:1; 10:1), including the proverbs copied by Hezekiah's men (25:1). There are also two batches of sayings from a group called “the wise” (22:17–24:22; 24:23–34), and “oracles” from Agur (30:1–33) and Lemuel (31:1–9). But no author is named for the song in praise of the excellent wife that ends the book (31:10–31).

Solomon's interest in proverbs is corroborated by 1 Kings 4:29–34: “Solomon's wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. … He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005.” However, the proverbs mentioned in Kings are not necessarily identical to those of the book of Proverbs. First Kings speaks of Solomon composing proverbs about trees, beasts, birds, reptiles, and fish (1 Kings 4:33), but there are few such sayings in the Solomonic parts of Proverbs. Even so, there is nothing in the Bible to contradict the idea that Solomon was responsible for the portions of this book attributed to him. It is possible that he sponsored those who collected material from other sources (the wise, Agur, and Lemuel), but no one can be sure. At any rate the book does not claim that Solomon put it into its final form, since Hezekiah (see Prov. 25:1) reigned c. 715–686 b.c., long after Solomon's time. (For a discussion of the identities of Agur and Lemuel, see notes on 30:1–33 and 31:1–9.)

Today, many scholars assert that most of Proverbs was written much later than the time of Solomon, and many interpreters ascribe most of the contents of the book and certainly its final form to the postexilic period (i.e., after 539 b.c., when the Hebrews were in contact with the Persians and then the Greeks). There is little clear evidence to support such skepticism, however. The Hebrew of Proverbs is not demonstrably of a late variety, and there are no bits of historical evidence within the text that speak against an origin in the tenth century b.c. for the Solomonic portions of Proverbs. To the contrary, there are three principal arguments for dating this material to the reign of Solomon, apart from the claim of 1:1.

First, wisdom texts very similar to Proverbs predate the book of Proverbs by as much as a millennium. In addition to proverb texts from early Mesopotamia, a wide array of wisdom literature from Egypt has numerous and striking parallels to Proverbs. Some important ones are: The Instruction of Vizier Ptah-hotep (written in the 5th or 6th Egyptian Dynasty, c. 2500–2190 b.c.); The Instruction for Merikare (10th Dynasty, c. 2106–2010 b.c.); and The Instruction of Amenemope (probably written c. 1250 b.c.). The existence of these and other wisdom texts shows that the practice of composing discourses on wisdom and collecting wise sayings was already ancient by the time of Solomon. The notion that interest in such material could not have evolved until late in Israelite history conflicts with the evidence.

The second argument is based in the nature of the Solomonic kingdom as described in the Bible. It is referred to as a golden age of peace, prosperity, and international prestige for Israel. As a rule, it is in such times that a flowering of literature occurs. For example, of the above Egyptian texts, Ptah-hotep is from the powerful Old Kingdom period, and Amenemope is from the New Kingdom period. Merikare is an exception, coming from the weaker First Intermediate Period of Egypt, but it is rooted in the wisdom of the Old Kingdom. Similarly, the giants of Greek dramatic literature (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes) emerged in the fifth century b.c., during the time of the Athenian Empire, and it was also at that time that Socrates propelled Western philosophy forward. The greatest works of Latin literature, and in particular the Aeneid of Virgil, were written in the golden age of Augustus. Based on these analogies, it is much more likely that the bulk of Proverbs comes from the golden age of Solomon than from the much more humble age of Hezekiah, to say nothing of the postexilic period, when Jerusalem was a cultural backwater.

Third, the Jewish wisdom literature known to be from the postexilic period, especially Sirach (also called Ecclesiasticus; c. 180 b.c.) and the pseudepigraphal Wisdom of Solomon (1st century b.c.), is noteworthy for being quite unlike Proverbs, clearly displaying the concerns of Hellenistic Judaism. Sirach seeks for a pious ideal based in following the already completed Hebrew Scriptures, and mentions particular figures in biblical and postbiblical history. The Wisdom of Solomon is concerned with matters of immortality, eschatology, and philosophy in a different way from Proverbs. There is a Lady Wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon but, although clearly derived from Proverbs 8, this Lady Wisdom is described as an “emanation of the glory of the Almighty” and the “radiance of eternal light” (Wisd. Sol. 7:25–26), i.e., using terms unlike any used for Lady Wisdom in Proverbs 8 and thus reflecting a later era. Proverbs itself shows no indication of the postexilic age, either of the Persian or the Hellenistic period.

In summary, there is nothing that speaks against and much that speaks in favor of dating the materials in Proverbs to the Solomonic era. This does not mean that Solomon personally composed every proverb in the book, and the text does not say that he did. Further, the present form of the book is from a later time than the age of Solomon, but probably no later than Hezekiah.